Hi, my name is Heather Ford, also known as the traffic ticket lady. And today, I would like to talk a little bit about why you shouldn’t just pay a speeding ticket—why it can matter more than you think. So a lot of people are just like, Why would I want to fight it or be bothered going to court? I’ll just pay it and move on.
The most important thing about a speeding ticket is that it is a moving violation. And a moving violation can make your insurance go up. And for some people, that can be kind of significant. I was on Reddit a little while back, and somebody was like, you know, I paid a speeding ticket, and all of a sudden, the binder that was issued was for $1,000 more than the insurance company was willing to offer just before the payment of the ticket. Another thing people think is, well, I paid the ticket, no big deal. I didn’t plead guilty or anything like that.
The reality is paying a ticket is the same thing as pleading guilty. It has the same effect as walking into the courtroom and saying, “Judge, I’m guilty, let me throw myself on the mercy of the court.” It is functionally no different. So when you pay the ticket online, without having done anything to get it removed, that will hit your record. The other issue that really comes up for a lot of people is employment issues. So you might say, “Hey, I don’t work a job where I have to drive, no big deal, who cares.” But things can change. I’ve seen where people have positions where maybe they use their own car for work.
And because that’s part of the duties, they might decide to check their driving record. The other thing that has happened is that for someone who previously was using their own work vehicle, the company decided to issue company cars. And so all of a sudden, a ticket that they paid two years ago is an issue. This is also for students; you’d never know where your first career is gonna take you or what benefits are included. I was working with somebody who was offered a corporate vehicle as part of their benefits, and they paid a ticket a couple of years ago, and all of a sudden, it became a problem.
The much bigger issue at that point is that it is not the easiest thing to undo; it really just depends on your court. There are different mechanisms to try to get something like that off your record. One way is to go to the court and request to reopen the matter, but it’s completely up to the judge. Another mechanism is an expungement which, unfortunately, is an expensive and slow process. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that point; reopening would be a much better option. An expungement will cost you at least $500-$600 just in fees. And then it takes a while, and you have to petition the court.
At this point, they have to serve the local law enforcement and get background checks and basically hope that no one objects to the expungement. All of that can take months and months and months. And so if somebody was looking to hire you and wanted you to work for them in the next three or four weeks, that would be a huge problem. And it would take us a while to resolve it.
So I always encourage people, you know, if you get these tickets, like a speeding ticket, red light, stop sign, anything like that, there’s gonna be a moving violation. So to distinguish that from something like, you know, no registration, headlight, general equipment, those are things that are associated with the car but are not something that is based on you driving the car, and so they are treated a little bit differently. Usually, our goal in these cases, well, you know, we always want a dismissal. What we’re really focusing on is to make sure that this ticket does not have a significant impact on you. And our main mechanism for doing that is getting a ticket reduced to a non-moving violation.
So if you’re like, I don’t know if this is moving or not. I’m always happy to help people. You can shoot me a text at 504-535-LADY. That’s also 504-535-5239. I’m happy to help in any way. I can give you a little bit of pointers about what’s going on if you have some questions. So like I say, again, my name is Heather Ford. I’m also known as the traffic ticket lady. If you have any questions about tickets, you know, or want a free consultation about how to minimize the impact on your record, we can do that anytime. Thanks and have a good day.
